It doesn't affect me personally. But this kind of thing has been going on for years. I remember reading a few years ago that the staff of a Scottish prawn factory had all been laid off because it was cheaper to air-freight the prawns to Thailand and have them processed there. Then they got air-freighted back to the UK, all packaged and ready for sale.

It might sound crazy but it's very logical when you take into account the costs of living and different wage rates of different economies. I would never in my wildest dreams be able to afford household staff in the UK, but when we lived in India, we had several. A full time house-keeper, FT driver, PT gardener, PT dhobi, and so on and on. Actually it was a real PITB having to manage all these people.

Labour imported to the UK is likely to be cheaper because many of the people have lower expectations. They are often quite happy to share accommodation to a greater extent than Brits would, and then they can send back some of their salary to the home country and keep their families going. From memory, I think the going rate for a FT driver in Delhi was about £100 per month. If, say, a driver could move overseas have a roof over his fed and food in his belly, anything on top of that could be sent home to take care of the family. It's potentially a lot more than he would earn otherwise.